I went insane at this very point

August 2015

October 2016

April 2017

July 2017

September 2018

December 2018

June 2019

February 2020

August 2020

May 2021

January 2022

October 2022

April 2023

July 2023

June 2024

February 2025

March 2025

November 2025

August 2026

he decides he wants the fear factor back and in all his brilliant genius, he decides the best way to go about that is to invite the league round for a fancy dinner party, specifically so he can use all his ‘brucie wayne’ acting skills to channel the essence of every creepy-rich-guy-in-haunted-manor movie he has ever seen in his life. it is the only time his kids have been fully onboard and willing to contribute to one of his plans without any complaints. they almost seemed more eager to pull it off than he was.

they spend the entire day making the manor look old and slightly abandoned, much to Alfred’s displeasure, and ensure that the only lighting is a fuck ton of candles, just enough to light the halls while leaving the corners and edges shadowy and ominous. Damian is allowed to have some of his more ‘skittery’ pets roam the manor freely for the night, causing occasional scritches and scratches to come from the ceilings. all of the kids dress in their best funeral attire, apart from Jason who gleefully pulls on an old white shirt stained with blood from when Tim crashed through his window with a stab wound, requesting a medkit.

when the league arrive they’re greeted by all the kids lined up on the staircase, staring at them blankly and ominously, while Bruce gives them all a large grin and ushers them into the creepy looking dining room. the league are somewhat nervous.

during the dinner the kids act completely different than the league have seen them in-mask. polite, cordial, and refusing to show an ounce of emotion. they pick at their food and only speak in vague sentences that refer to various horrific events of their past. Bruce has never been prouder.

the first close call they have to breaking character is when Bruce presents a bottle of red wine without any kind of label. as he pours a slightly disturbed Diana a glass, she asks where he got it from. Bruce happily gestures to Jason as says ‘my second eldest procured it especially for you, earlier today.’

Diana looks across the table at where Jason is grinning eerily at her by candlelight, still visibly stained with blood, eyes glowing slightly green. she pales, and Tim knows he can’t watch her shakily lift the glass to her lips without bursting out laughing. he refuses to be the one who fucks up first, so he dramatically stands up and declares he must ‘go feed the experiments’ before storming out the room. ‘the experiments’ are in reference to the pen of rabbits outside that glow in the dark because Damian rescued them from a testing facility, but given the environmental context it sounds much more sinister.

Jason joins him by the pen to also start wheeze-crying in private about 20 minutes later, because apparently after Oliver Queen had finished with his bbq rib, Damian had leaned over and without blinking stared into his eyes to blankly state ‘i would love to feed your bones to my animal friends, if you don’t need them anymore.’ and from the other end of the table Jason had snorted wine up his nose from how hard he was trying not to break.

amazingly, they never break character, although it came pretty close when after hearing another skitter from somewhere above, Stephanie climbed up from the table into the crystal chandelier and deftly returned to present the table with a large tarantula cradled in her hands, to which Damian stood up and declared, ‘ah, dessert! i will help pennyworth prepare it.’ before taking the animal and leaving to put his beloved spider back in it’s enclosure. the league genuinely seemed to be under the impression they were about to be served a tarantula-based desert, and upon seeing their faces at this realisation Dick had to pretend he’d dropped a fork on the ground so he could duck by Bruce’s chair and stuff a napkin in his mouth while he got his laughter under control. Bruce pats his shaking son’s back below the table cloth, determinedly staring at their guests with that same creepy-grin he’d kept up the entire night.

every member of the league makes their excuses to leave early, much to Bruce’s exaggerated disappointment. the second the last of them is out the door Alfred turns to face the family and says ‘mission accomplished. now get this manor back to it’s proper state.’ and they have the spend the rest of the night cleaning.

the reason for this alliance, is because both Tim and Jason realised very shortly after coming into contact with each other that neither of them has any sense of self control when it comes to being spiteful or petty. Jason has had 90% of his will to give a fuck and his self preservation stripped away from him via Lazarus pit and the other 10% clearly didn’t exist anyway(see: stealing Batman’s tires and hitting him with a tire iron when caught). Tim meanwhile is completely feral regardless; he had to have no boundaries to survive with less-than-present parents and surviving a grieving Bruce’s version of Robin-training. plus the whole business with the LOA and Ra’s? his sense of escalation got lost in the fray years ago.

the issue with this, the two found out shortly after Jason first started interacting with the kid, is that them fighting in any way starts to become like a pushing-two-magnets situation. neither of them have ever come across somebody with as little sense of control as they have, so neither of them ever consider backing down from any kind of battle or feud. they find the dangers of this when Jason trips Tim in the hall and within 12 hours it’s escalated to Tim shooting a bazooka into Jason’s favourite safe house while Jason sets fire to Drake manor, framing Tim for insurance fraud in the process.

any kind of battle of spite between the two has no visible end, and it wont even occur to either of them for a second to back down or apologise, simply because fuck it amiright?

Alfred finds them one day in the kitchen engaging in a ‘water fight’ with special metal water-guns that spew acid. Jason has been stabbed at some point, and is bleeding onto the floor. He only seems to recognise this injury in the perimeters of using it against Tim by swiping the blood across the floor to make him slip. Tim has barbed wire in his hair and a clearly dislocated shoulder but he’s ice skating in that blood towards Jason without a single beat missed. Alfred gets them to stop specifically to clean up his goddam kitchen, and, while they guiltily clean, he finds out the root cause of this fight.

the night before, Tim stole Jason’s pencil. that’s it.

slightly terrified for the well-being on his grandsons, he spends the rest of the day acting as a peace-maker/lawyer to draft up an ‘alliance contract’ between the two, knowing that the only way to keep them safe from both themselves and each other is to make them a team, forever and unbreakably loyal towards each other. it takes a sleepless night to draft up all the details but he convinces the two to sign it, making it both a bat-pact, a blood-pact, and a legal document. it is the most important document in the manor, and Alfred hides it in his own personal quarters just to ensure it is kept safe.

because of the contract Jason and Tim are no longer allowed to engage in any kind of fight. any kind of disagreement, no matter how little, must be brought to Alfred, something he knows he’ll lose sleep over but at least Tim and Jason will be safe- it also gives them incentive to compromise with each other because if they don’t then one of them will have to wake Alfred up in the middle of the night just to ask which one of them gets the last of the cereal. they have to become a duo, loyal to each other first and foremost and always reliable enough that the other can turn to them in need. it becomes a very serious deal, and after realising the danger their fights could potentially put the family in(Tim tried to poison Jason’s food once but failed to account for Dick stealing Jason’s food like a normal big brother would), they decide they need to take this alliance up with the upmost sincerity.

for the good of Gotham.

Damian’s principal watches as this 200+ pound brick shit-house of a guy casually wanders into the school with the most menacing glare on his face as he sips from a starbucks cup, slings his other hand into the pocket of his leather jacket, ignores her completely to turn to Damian and go ‘fuck’d you do now?’

‘fighting.’ Damian responds, looking slightly proud, sitting straight up in his seat. brick shit-house man sticks his bottom lip out and nods consideringly.

‘opponent get a hit on you?’

‘of course not. i used that move you showed me when i was four. executed it perfectly.’

brick shit-house man nods again in approval, sticking out his cup. ‘nice. you get the rest of my oreo frappe as a reward.’

Damian takes the drink and sips it delicately, preening under the guys praise. the kid Damian had been called in for fighting, of whom had been whining about how Damian should be suspended for his actions, had grown nervously silent at the sight of the frankly massively intimidating man, as had his equally vocal mother. brick shit-house man doesn’t grant them a glance, instead looking at the principal.

‘so can we go now? i was in the middle of an interrogation when Bruce called.’

hesitating slightly, the principal asks who this man is, in relation to her student.

‘none of your fucking business.’

ok then. after double checking that Damian was ok with leaving with the man, there wasn’t much she could do but say yes and hope her acquiescing would save her from the weight of his glare. as they leave, she hears Damian innocently ask if he could aid with the interrogation, being as he was now free for the afternoon.

‘are you kidding? Bruce would hate me if i let you near that shit.’ a beat. ‘so yeah but like don’t fuckin tell him.’

the principal just kinda squints for a second and is like ‘aren’t you also one of my students?’

and Tim starts sweating. ‘what? no, i dropped out like six months ago’

‘i don’t remember you dropping out.’

‘well i less dropped out and more stopped showing up because i had to work-‘

‘that is no excuse, Timothy Jackson Drake.’

three hours later Bruce finally finishes whatever mission he was dealing with and has to go down to the school because now the principal wont let Tim leave without a guardian either. Bruce walks in with Tim’s emancipation papers to prove that he is indeed no longer a student and sees his two youngest sat in the corner, Damian shaking his head at Tim in pure disappointment while Tim hangs his head in humiliated shame and the principal talks about the consequences of missing six months worth of classes.

Dick: this is gonna be good

Tim, grinning: what do we need to know?

Bruce: one of you is adopted,

The kids:

Bruce, tearing up: and im SO sorry, but i just- i can’t remember who-!

Jason, gleefully: I’LL REMIND YOU- *mouth covered by Dick*

Bruce: *sobs and then passes out*

The kids:

Jason, shoving Dick off him: GET- off me! wake him up we have to tell him it’s Damian

Damian: ME!?

Jason, looking for somebody else to fuck with now Bruce is down: you look the least like him- I mean come on, those twig arms,

Jason, pointing at a passed out Bruce: you are NOT the father.

Steph: *chokes on a wheeze*

Damian, incredulous: are you- DUKES BLACK

Duke: what and you’re white? don’t fucking start this shit kid

Damian, drawing his katana: i will not have my inheritence questioned like this-

Duke, warningly: *starts glowing*

Jason: *starts filming*

Dick: oh god… Bruce is gonna wake up to Damian in the hospital. what are we gonna tell him?

Tim, eating popcorn: i dunno about you but i’m gonna tell him he got high and started a race war to see how much he panics.

in the background, Duke: *shoots Damian into the side of the wall*

Damian: *leaps back with a war cry*

Jason, looking at his phone: oh you think telling him is gonna make him panic? i’m saying it on twitter and letting him find out through WE getting boycotted

Dick:

Dick: arguably worse than trying to make him kill the joker but ok

Dick: *hanging from the chandelier using his legs, looking upside down at his brothers*

Dick: *waves*

Tim:

Jason:

Jason: *waves back*

Tim: My question is not why he is doing that. I think that's obvious.

Jason: Yeah, the real question is...

Damian, who just entered the mansion: RICHARD, HOW DID YOU GET UP THERE?!

Bruce takes care of his work, but occasionally stops to, in fact, help Robin who is trying to do his English homework. The other members also help out, of course.

So, Hal arrives at the Watchtower, and Robin, seeing the man his dad mentor has been so grumpy about because of the last meeting they had (Hal doesn't understand that Batman is the best at his job and is the one giving directions for a reason, duh!), decides he will exact revenge.

He carries on a normal conversation with the man just as he did with everyone else, subtly leading the topic until Hal falls into the trap:

Hal: What about your mom? I can't imagine anyone putting up with the old bat.

He speaks with all mockery, but then his smile freezes when he sees the tremor in the little boy's shoulders.

Dick: *shuddering and holding back a little sob* my mummy died in front of me a few months ago.... I...

Hal is pale now, because the child actually sobs, and runs off to hide in the cape of Batman, who was now standing, ready to stitch up his child.

He's not the only one, Superman and the others are already there too, looking at him angrily because he made the little bean cry.

Hal is in a panic.

And if he sees how the boy smiles at him when no one is looking, sticking his tongue out at him while moving his lips to send him the message "Don't bother my dad", no one would ever believe him, not while the little boy is now clinging to Batman tightly as he slowly blinks away tears that not even the best actors could ever pull off.

Only Hal knows the devil behind that angel face.

Let my baby have fun, shush.

Dick finds the weirdest possible positions to be absolutely comfortable. We already talked about how he likes to hang upside down, but besides that, he's always sitting in a strange way.

Bruce doesn't have any opinion on any of this, but sometimes wonders if Dick is trying to give himself some kind of cramp. The others just wonder if the boy has actual bones.

Bruce thought Dick couldn't be a picky eater, but he's totally wrong. Alfred taught Dick to cook because he knows that if he depended solely on food prepared by other people, the boy would starve.

He also taught him other things for sensory issues that he doesn't want to acknowledge. (Yes, there are ways to keep his sheets soft enough, to prevent his shirts from getting lint, even cleaning the slab so it doesn't have weird textures).

Bruce always purposely gave him more work than he needed to do, otherwise he would never get the boy to concentrate. Nothing too difficult, he didn't want to overburden him yet, but seriously, even if he liked math, he would never sit down for more than 10 minutes to do his homework. Organizing his tasks didn't always work, but a deadline? It was his best strategy. Even out of ten minutes, eight were just him thinking about something else and only two to complete the job, he would complete it anyway.

(He never gives him the same task twice in a row. God knows that will never be complete. Have you seen how many jobs this man has? He can't stay in one place for more than a few months).

His thoughts also jump from one situation to another as much as he jumps on rooftops when he is on patrol. Bruce never understands his line of thinking, but it is extremely helpful in solving cases.

Despite appearing extroverted, Dick was still more of an ambivert, sometimes even seeming more introverted, he's just not that shy. His social battery runs out pretty quickly, even if he pretends it doesn't. He still needs time to himself in order to move on, and as a child his best way of pointing this out to Bruce was by hiding under tables in a dark place, or instead, climb to the highest places, farthest from people. Bruce learned that although Dick was used to the noise of people, he was used to seeing it from above, not in the middle of the crowd.

It's not that he's non-verbal, but there are still days where just talking is a no-no. As a child he had better control, but as an adult he just doesn't want to talk, and he's not going to talk.

Weighted blankets? Yes please. Noise cancelling headphones? He would love to, but he is too paranoid to completely isolate himself from his surroundings. (If his friends notice that his leg is bouncing more than usual, they assure him that they will keep watch and ask him to wear his headphones for a while, if they need to talk to him they use sign language).

He also has blackout curtains. And we all know his comfort object is a stuffed elephant, come on. (I love the fandom for this idea. Give the guy his stuffed elephant, give him Zitka.)

Yes, Dick, people have hobbies, but normal people don't change hobbies after mastering them once, much less change them every three days. No, gymnastics is no longer your hobby at this point, it's literally your life.

Bruce: Probably on the autism spectrum, although it's more like high cognitive abilities (which is also considered a neurodivergence) mixed with his PTSD.

Dick: ADHD and high cognitive abilities too, if not, AUDHD (or all 3 together), explaining the barely visible traits due to comorbidity. (Plus PTSD, but that's for ALL the batfamily).

Jason: Honestly? I don't see him with ADHD like many say, I really like the HC, but... I just can't see it that much. Definitely PTSD and maybe developed BPD at some point.

Tim: I do see this guy as having ADHD. I know the most popular HC is autism, but for me it's ADHD with high cognitive abilities, just like Dick. (And... Yeah, PTSD).

Damian: High cognitive abilities like his father, I don't see him as someone autistic, not completely at least enough to put him on the spectrum, quite close tho- I don't even need to say anything about the other thing, right?

I don't know Cass and Duke well enough to say anything about them, and I still have my doubts about Babs and Steph. Babs would probably be highly cognitively gifted and I don't really see Steph as neurodivergent, like Jason. They are the neurotypicals of the family who catch weird behaviors from prolonged exposure.

There are two things that someone learns when they attempt to hold the first Robin hostage.

All the playground gossip

Don't fuck with Robin

Example 1:

Duke: who the fuck is wasting our water? Do you know how expensive the bill will be next month?

Tim: Do you know that even if we had opened all the taps in the manor, Bruce would still have no problem paying for them for at least the next ninety years?

Duke, closing the faucet: yeah, what's your point?

Example 2:

Duke: It's literally a rip-off! Six dollars for a fucking yogourt?! Nah, let's go Cass, bet I can find an analog for three.

Cass, handing him the hundred dollar bill that Bruce gave them to buy two yogourts (he didn't know the price and just hoped that it was enough): ?

Duke, dragging her out of the store: It's a principle now, let's go.

Example 3:

Dick, accidentally dropping his phone: oopsie-

Duke, without thinking: of course, go on and break it. We are all billionaires here, aren't we?

Dick, pretty much confused: well, technically…

Duke: I see you, victim of capitalism.

There is an unwritten rule about not hitting him in the face, everyone follows it, (even from his time as Robin some people already followed this rule). His siblings when by miracle they train together. His team when they get together to practice strategies and fighting methods. Even the damned villains and evildoers know not to hit the pretty bird in the face.

Dick never finds it strange. Somehow, he thinks it's simply because people have learned that punching him in the face isn't really going to stop him, if they're looking to confuse him, hitting the back of his head is more effective.

It's not until a drug dealer accidentally hits him in the nose for the first time in years, breaking it, that he notices something strange. How could he not? The battle stops for a moment because his companions start yelling at him, telling him that his face is off limits, and the dealer apologizes.

Dick barely blinks and stops them, then goes to his apartment to clean up the blood, the pain not even bothering him at this point. That's why he doesn't understand why not only his team makes a fuss about it the next day, but they even call his siblings to tell them what happened. He's not even that hurt ??????